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African American Inventors and Inventions

When Americans asked for “the real McCoy,” their requests were for an authentic product. Elijah McCoy, an AfricanAmerican inventor, was the inspiration for the pop culture phrase. His self-lubricating devices kept locomotives well-oiled while in motion and ended the costly and time-consuming necessity of frequent train stops in order to oil theparts in order to prevent breakdowns. Captains of industry wanted nothing less than “real McCoy” products for theirmachines.

McCoy was among many black inventors who were credited with conveniences 21st-century consumers take forgranted. Travelers waiting at an electric traffic signal should know that Garrett Morgan invented the control device in1923. Indeed, Thomas A. Edison invented the electric light bulb; however, black patent expert and inventor Lewis H.Latimer made the filament that transformed light bulbs from a novelty to practical consumer product: They burnedbrightly for hundreds of hours.

Many of these African American inventors played a transformative role during the Industrial Revolution of the 1800sthrough early 1900s. About 370 inventions, modifications, and patents were created by African Americans between1821 and 1987, according to James Michael Brodie in Created Equal: The Lives of Black American Innovators. Ofthat total, 322 of these achievements—about 85%—occurred between 1865 and 1930, the post-Civil War and peakIndustrial Revolution eras.

Inventors such as McCoy, Latimer, Granville T. Woods, Jan Matzeliger, Garrett A. Morgan, and Percy Julian createddevices and products that allow many comforts people now take for granted, for example, electric lights, traffic signalsand safe train travel. Other inventions by significant, less well-known black inventors brought convenience andefficiency to domestic living, or increased productivity on farms.

These inventors and innovators suffered overt racism and discrimination, yet they persevered and their contributionsendured. In some instances pop culture myths embellished or overdramatized the feats of inventors, scientists, andentrepreneurs, ranging from Charles R. Drew to Madam C.J. Walker. Historians and biographers in the late 1900sand early 21st century worked to place these innovators’ achievements in credible context. For example, Drew,inventor of the blood bank, a system for storing blood plasma, died in an automobile accident in North Carolina. Amyth evolved that a white-run hospital denied the critically injured medical doctor treatment. The ironic story was toldon an episode of the 1970s CBS sitcom “M.A.S.H.” Drew family members said it was unlikely that he died because ofracist hospital practices.

Regarding Walker, biographer A’Lelia Bundles wrote that Walker did not invent the hot comb. Walker learned haircare treatment from Annie Turnbo Pope Malone, who earned the first patent for the modern hot comb in 1900.Walker, formerly Sarah Breedlove McWilliams, became synonymous with black women’s hair care because ofrelentless marketing, promotion, and distribution of hair care products and treatments. “Two Dollars and a Dream,” a1987 PBS documentary, told the self-made millionaire’s story.

Breakthrough Inventions of the Late 1800sRailroad travel was the fastest way to move in the late 1800s, yet locomotives stopped up to a dozen times a day so“firemen” could manually oil engine parts. Elijah McCoy, a child of runaway slaves, grew up free in Canada, then the

family moved back across the U.S. border to Michigan. McCoy was sent to Scotland, where he was trained as anengineer. He returned to America but was denied work in his field. McCoy settled for a railroad fireman job. In his idletime, he invented an oil cup, a money- and time-saving creation that lubricated train engines while in motion.

In the late 1800s, deadly train crashes occurred because conductors could not see other trains in tunnels or aroundbends. Granville T. Woods invented a train-signaling device that could send Morse code and oral signals over thesame line and alert conductors of respective locations and reduce the probability of collisions. Woods also inventedthe third rail, an electrical conductor used on city subway systems. With 35 patents for electrical inventions and 150patents for all of his creations, Woods was called “the black Edison.” Woods tangled twice with Edison in courtroomsover who owned the rights to electrical inventions. Woods, owner of a Cincinnati-based company, won both verdicts.

On February 14, 1876, Alexander Graham Bell’s documents for the telephone arrived at the U.S. patent office fourhours before a competitor. Bell won thanks to Lewis H. Latimer, a patent writer who agreed to stay after work andassist with the technical drawings necessary for Bell’s breakthrough invention. Six years later in 1880, Hiram Maximhired Latimer to work as a draftsman at U.S. Electrical Lighting Company. A year earlier, competitor Edison patentedan incandescent light bulb. Edison’s breakthrough, however, was not reliable for everyday use. At Maxim’s company,Latimer produced the sturdy carbon filament that enabled long-lasting light bulbs. Although Latimer patented hisinvention in 1882, Maxim claimed the credit. Latimer left the company. Years later Edison met Latimer and hired him.Latimer became Edison’s point man in lawsuits by competitors, including Maxim. Latimer won the majority of lawsuitsand established Edison as the inventor synonymous with electrical lighting.

Before 1890, shoes were expensive and rare. Shoe bottoms were machine made, but uppers were hand stretchedand stitched into the soles by lasters, or craftsmen. Jan Matzeliger, a South American immigrant, sailed toPhiladelphia then moved north to Lynn, Massachusetts. A wiz with machines, Matzeliger worked around the clockuntil he successfully made a lasting machine that could fasten shoe uppers to the soles. The difference: A craftsmanworking a 10-hour shift could complete 50 pairs of shoes in a day; the lasting machine made up to 700 pairs of shoesa day. By 1900, several thousand lasting machines in America produced 80 million pairs of shoes. In 1992,Matzeliger was recognized on a U.S. postage stamp.

Carver's Agri-Revolution Julian's Forgotten GeniusIn 1911, a fire at a shirt factory killed 146 workers in New York. Garrett A. Morgan invented a mask to protect firemenfrom smoky and toxic fumes. Morgan’s gas mask was updated and was worn by American soldiers during World WarI. After the war, automobile use was on the rise and rules of the roads at intersections evolved. Morgan also inventedthe traffic signal, a tall pole with a bell and a hand crank controlled flaps printed with the warning “stop.” Morgan soldhis invention to General Electric.

George Washington Carver was a botanist. His discovery of edible and other uses for peanuts and sweet potatoesreaped hundreds of millions of dollars for farmers. Carver taught them how to rotate crops and not depend solely oncotton, which stripped soil of nutrients. Booker T. Washington recruited Carver to teach at Tuskegee Institute inAlabama. Carver’s experiments laid the groundwork for current research on plant-based fuels and medicines. A U.S.Postal Service stamp recognizing Carver was issued in 1948. A half century later in 1998, Carver’s work in the 1910sdecade was spotlighted in the “Celebrate the Century” stamp series.

Percy Julian, a chemist who synthesized glaucoma treatment physostigmine from soybeans, went on to create othermedical treatments and products. Julian also produced synthetic cortisone from soybeans, significant becausepreviously the arthritis cure was expensive because it was produced in small quantities. During World War II, Julian’ssoybean derivative Aero-Foam was a smothering agent used to put out oil and gasoline fires. Julian wasmemorialized on a U.S. Postage stamp in 1994. In 2008 he was profiled in the PBS documentary “Forgotten Genius.”

 

 

In the post-Jim Crow, postmodern era, African American inventors and scientists continue—often in near anonymity—to create products or solve problems that improve people’s lives in a global economy.

Wayne Dawkins

Further Reading

Brodie, James Michael. Created Equal: The Lives and Ideas of Black American Innovators. New York: Morrow, 1993;Fouche, Rayvon. Black Inventors in the Age of Segregation. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003.

Select Citation Style:  MLA

MLADawkins, Wayne. "African American Inventors and Inventions." The American Mosaic: The African American

Experience. ABC-CLIO, 2016. Web. 6 May 2016.

back to top Entry ID: 1515393

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Lewis Latimer

African American inventor Lewis Latimer developed the light bulb breakthrough that allowed the manufacture ofcarbon filaments for Thomas Alva Edison's incandescent bulb. Beginning a career as a patent illustrator, Latimerexecuted drawings for Alexander Graham Bell and for Edison; Latimer, a pioneer, became an early builder of theelectric light industry, and he was famed as the developer of long-lasting carbon filaments.

Born in Chelsea, Massachusetts, on September 4, 1848, to fugitive slave parents, George and Rebecca Latimer, whohad fled Norfolk, Virginia, on October 4, 1842, Lewis Howard Latimer was the youngest of four children. The policearrested his father in Boston four days after his arrival when his owner appeared before authorities demandingimprisonment for George until he was returned to slavery. News of the arrest spread, and abolitionists such asWilliam Lloyd Garrison and Frederick Douglass supported the call for Latimer's release and raised $400 to purchaseGeorge's freedom. Latimer's case was one of several prominent Boston fugitive-slave cases that resulted in thepassage of a Massachusetts law prohibiting state officers from participating in apprehending fugitive slaves.

At age 16, Latimer enlisted in the Union Navy in 1864 in the midst of the Civil War and served as landsman aboardthe side-wheel gunboat U.S.S. Massasoit, which was part of the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron. Latimerreceived an honorable discharge after the vessel returned to Boston in 1865. When he was looking for work, hehappened upon a young black woman who had been asked to suggest a "colored boy" as a helper in the office ofsolicitors Crosby and Gould. They needed an office youth with a "taste for drawing." The firm of Crosby and Gouldwas a noted patent law establishment in Boston that hired a corps of drafters to design patent drawings. Latimertaught himself drafting and requested permission to do some drawings. His employers reluctantly acquiesced andthen discovered an outstanding talent. Eventually Latimer rose to the position of chief draftsman.

His work was well respected, and he remained at the firm for 11 years. In later years, the firm was renamed Crosbyand Gregory and was located near the school where inventor Alexander Graham Bell was teaching andexperimenting on his telephone. In January 1874, apparently influenced by his office speciality and showing hisingenuity, Latimer, with coinventor Charles W. Brown of Salem, filed a patent application at the U.S. Patent Office inWashington, D.C., for an improvement in water closets (toilets) for railroad cars, and received the patent the followingmonth on February 10. They modified the standard water closet by providing a pivoted bottom to the hopper that wasautomatically opened and closed by closing and raising the seat cover, respectively. Crosby and Gould were theirpatent attorneys.

Latimer met Bell and they became good friends. Bell learned that Latimer was a draftsman, he asked Latimer to drawthe plans for his telephone invention. Bell began work on the telephone in September 1875. Latimer assisted Bell inpreparing the patent application and also helped him with various drawings. Bell's patent was issued on March 7,1876.

In 1880, Latimer, now living in Bridgeport, Connecticut, near a sister, began to work as a draftsman for the UnitedStates Electric Lighting Company under chief engineer and founder Hiram Maxim, who was impressed with Latimer'sability. Here Latimer was introduced to the emerging technology of electric light and learned of inventor ThomasEdison, who had invented the incandescent carbon-filament electric lamp in 1879, which was patented on January27, 1880. Maxim, Edison, and other upstart electric companies competed for solving the problem of providing a long-

 

 

lasting filament. Latimer, who had moved to New York City, teamed with Joseph V. Nichols of Brooklyn and filed anapplication for an electric lamp in 1881. They received a patent for producing "incandescence of a continuous strip ofcarbon secured to metallic wires" attached to the electric lamp base on September 13 of the same year.

Six days before the 1881 patent was issued, Latimer, alone, filed an application for the breakthrough patent on aprocess of manufacturing carbon filaments. Latimer formulated a process of carbonizing material by enclosing itbetween cardboard, rather than the standard material, tissue paper or cloth. The cardboard expanded at hightemperatures at the same time as the carbonizing material, thereby producing an exceptional filament that had anextended life. The patent was issued on January 17, 1882, and was assigned to the United States Electric LightingCompany. Nichols was listed on the patent as one of his witnesses, and Parker W. Page was his new patent attorney.Latimer was still employed by Maxim, so the carbon filaments were initially used in Maxim's lamp. Several monthslater in 1882, Latimer and another inventor, John Tregoning of Philadelphia, patented a globe supporter for electriclamps, assigned also to Maxim's company.

After installing some new lamps in various facilities in New York and Philadelphia, Maxim sent Latimer to Canada andBritain to teachand supervise the innovative method. After Latimer returned to the United States, he left Maxim andwent to work for the Brooklyn-based company Olmstead Electric, then moved to Acme Electric Light Company ofNew York City, where he made the Latimer Lamp. The company folded, and Latimer then became a draftsman andgeneral assistant with the Imperial Electric Light Company. However, by 1884, he was working for the Thomas AlvaEdison Electric Light Company as an engineer, chief draftsman, and expert witness on the Board of Patent Control, aposition critical to determine the outcome of patent lawsuits among competitors. Latimer was a distinguished memberof the Edison Pioneers and wrote the definitive book on incandescent electric lighting in 1890.

Latimer was a Renaissance man—draftsman, engineer, expert technical witness, author, poet, and inventor ofunusual creativity. In 1886, he turned his inventive ability away from electric lamps to patenting an apparatus forcooling, deodorizing, and disinfecting rooms and other areas. In 1896, he received a patent on a locking rack for hats,coats, umbrellas, canes, and the like, and in 1905, he patented a book supporter. Latimer died on December 11,1928, after an esteemed, illustrious career. The Edison Pioneers, the scientific team that helped Edison in hispioneering work, mourned his passing and paid tribute to Latimer, the only African American in the organization. ABrooklyn, New York, public school was named for him on May 10, 1968.

Patricia Carter Sluby

Further Reading

Amram, Fred M. B. African-American Inventors. Mankato, MN: Capstone Press, 1996; Gibbs, Carroll R. BlackInventors from Africa to America: Two Million Years of Invention and Innovation. Silver Spring, MD: ThreeDimensional Publishing Company, 1995.

Select Citation Style:  MLA

MLASluby, Patricia Carter. "Lewis Latimer." The American Mosaic: The African American Experience. ABC-CLIO, 2016.

Web. 6 May 2016.

back to top Entry ID: 1484417

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Elijah McCoy

An engineer by training, Elijah McCoy was an inventor who is best remembered for his steam engine lubricator. Itsoon revolutionized the industrial machine industry, since it allowed the lubrication of machines without turning themoff. This device came to be known as "the real McCoy," as opposed to one of the many cheap imitations, and perhapsgave birth to a popular American expression. His other famous inventions are the sprinkler and the folding ironingboard. When he died, McCoy had 57 patents in his name.

The son of escaped former slaves from Kentucky, McCoy was born on May 2, 1844, in Colchester, Ontario, Canada.He and his 11 brothers and sisters went to a local school for black children. When McCoy was still a child, his fathergot a job in the logging industry, so the family moved to a town outside Ypsilanti, Michigan.

In Michigan, McCoy worked in a machine shop and attended the public schools until 1858, when he was 15. Then,his parents used the money they had been saving to send McCoy to Edinburgh, Scotland to work as an apprentice inmechanical engineering. When he returned to the United States, he was a certified master mechanic and engineer,yet because he was black, he could not find a job in his field.

Finally, McCoy was forced to settle for a backbreaking job as a furnace stoker for the Michigan Central Railroad.Another part of his job there was to oil all the trains' moving parts, but he disliked this chore because it was inefficientand time-consuming, since the trains had to be shut down to get oiled. In 1870, he began thinking of ways to have themachines oil themselves as they ran.

Soon he had a device he thought would do the job, but he could find no backers to help him market his invention. In1871, the Michigan Central Railroad at last agreed to test what he called his "oil cup." It worked so well that by 1872,McCoy had a patent for a self-lubricating device, which by then was a small container filled with oil that had anadjustable stop-cock. He promptly sold the patent to finance more experiments on lubrication.

As simple as it was, McCoy's invention completely changed the new railroad industry by making it unnecessary forthe trains to stop every few miles for oiling. In addition, when factory owners and steamship operators heard aboutthe device, they put in orders so they could avoid shutting down their machines and losing valuable production andtravel time. They always made sure to ask for the "real McCoy," since the inventor's competitors lost no time inmaking inferior copies of the self-lubricator.

In 1882, McCoy quit his job at the railroad and moved to Detroit, Michigan, where he found work as an engineeringconsultant. For the next several decades, he continued to invent things to make life easier, including his lawnsprinkler (he hated standing out on the lawn) and a folding ironing table for his wife.

McCoy started his own company, the Elijah McCoy Manufacturing Company, in 1920 to manufacture and market his"Perfect Graphite Lubricator for Locomotives." However, the idea could not rival his earlier inventions and never reallygot off the ground. McCoy's health began to falter in 1926. Incomplete records indicate that he died in 1928 or 1929.

ABC-CLIO

INVENTOR OF THE COLOR TELEVISION: Guillermo Gonzalez Camarena

Born on February 17th 1917 in Guadalajara, Mexico. Camarena was a Mexican Engineer who was the inventor of the color-wheel type of color television. He was the first to patent the color television in the USA and in Mexico. His technology is still used to this day by NASA.

He was the son of Arturo González & Sara Camarena who were originally from Arandas Jalisco. One of his older brothers Jorge Camarena (1908-1980) was a great Painter, Muralist and Skulpter. When Camarena was two years of age his family and him made the move to Mexico City, this is where Camarena would spend the majority of his life. He was a very inventive young man and by the age of 7 he showed his talent by fabricating all kinds of electrical toys. By the age of 12 he build his own amateur radio. Camarenas family was not poor but they were not rich either so Camarena from a young age learned to find the parts for his inventions in local markets like the infamouse “Tepito”. He new how to turn old broken trash into true working treasures.

In 1930 he enrolled in the School of Mechanical and Electrical Engineers, where two years later he obtained his first radio license. Camarena was working for the radio station of the Secretary of Public Education while he continued to work on his inventions in his laboratory. Then in 1934 he fabricated his own Television Camara, he was only 17 years old.

At the age of 23 Camarena invented the “Chromoscopic adapter for television equipment”, this was an early color television transmission system A U.S. patent application. This invension was meant to be simply adapted to black and white television equipment. He then obtained a patent number 40235 for his system.

He loved to gaze at the stars so he built his own telescope, and he was also a member of the Astronomical Society of Mexico.

In 1941 Camarena was named chief of the radio stations XEQ-AM & XEW-AM.

He continued to perfect his invention and in 1942 he passed the first transmission through closed circuit television coming from the laboratory in his home.

In the field of broadcasting he also contributed when in 1945 the Ministry of Communications and Public Works commissioned a study on the volume, noise and attenuation of electrical communication systems in order to establish the legal units of reference in quadrant of the radio.The work of Guillermo Gonzalez Camarena extended to the field of medicine when it began to employ black and white television, then to color as a means of teaching the subject.

In 1950 Columbia College in Chicago, requested the production of the television system the young Mexican researcher had created. In January 1951 he was commissioned by Radio Panamericana, SA, to identify and locate the first relay station for Mexican television, which was installed in Atzomoni between Popocatepetl and Iztaccihuatl, in the place known as Paso de Cortés.

Also in 1951, he married Marie Antoinette Becerra Acosta, whom he met in the XEW-AM when he went to ask for autographs of famous speakers of the time. Camarena Becerra’s family had two sons, William and Joseph Arthur.

The mid-1950s boom raised the purchase of TVs, so the engineer Camarena emerged with Channel 2 and was appointed technical advisor of ”Telesistema Mexicano”. In 1960 he conducted the first tests in Guadalajara for the transmission of the color image, which was received with great welcome by viewers Guadalajara.

In January 21st 1963 Camarena began broadcasting in color on Channel 5 with the series “Children’s Paradise.” The engineer insisted that the television in the evenings should serve primarily children, who always showed great interest.

The main concern of the engineer was that his inventions could be enjoyed by the general public, including people with limited resources. There was still no official international standard color television, on May 6, 1963 the Mexican inventor presented his Bi color System Simplified, which was well received internationally. This system solved the problem of the economic aspect for future buyers. Camarena wanted to make the color television accessible and in 1964 they began large-scale manufacturing. The following year he established an agreement with Majestic factory, owned by Emilio Azcarraga Vidaurreta, and in May 1965 launched the sale of color television sets made in Mexico.

Camarena’s main interest was that his system would be used to teach literacy, and in coordination with the Secretariat of Public Education (Mexico), projected what would later become known as the Education System “Telesecundaria” (Tele Junior High).

A few days before his death Camarena presented his system of simplified bicolor at the World’s Fair in New York. On April 18, 1965, he returned to inspect the repeater transmitter at Channel 5 in the hills of Las Lajas, Veracruz. Camarena was killed in a car accident at the age of 48.

In 1995 a group concerned with the scientific and technological research in Mexico, formed the Foundation Guillermo González Camarena, AC, which seeks to promote the talent and creativity of national inventors. By putting his name to the Foundation, it pays homage to the creativity of this Jalisco distinguished scientist who managed one of the greatest inventions of global impact: the color television.

The National Polytechnic Institute, honored his name by building the Intellectual Property Center “Guillermo Gonzalez Camarena”

Camarena was a true pioneer he not only was a creative inventor but he always saw the potential of his invention as a way to teach children. Education was always very important to him. I also admire the fact that when he felt there were adjustments to be made to his invention they were to make his television more economical so that all of the people could enjoy the benefits of having a color T.V. His life was one that was taken to soon.